Spanish Communist leader Santiago Carillo dies (21 images)

Santiago Carrillo, the veteran Communist leader who was Spain's last surviving public figure to have taken an active part in the civil war, has died aged 97. Born in 1915 in the northern city of Gijon in 1915, Mr Carrillo was politically active from a young age. Although he lived in exile for decades, mostly in France, Carrillo was a central figure in Spanish politics during much of the tumultuous 20th Century and a player in the difficult transition to democracy in the late 1970s after...more »

Santiago Carrillo, the veteran Communist leader who was Spain's last surviving public figure to have taken an active part in the civil war, has died aged 97. Born in 1915 in the northern city of Gijon in 1915, Mr Carrillo was politically active from a young age. Although he lived in exile for decades, mostly in France, Carrillo was a central figure in Spanish politics during much of the tumultuous 20th Century and a player in the difficult transition to democracy in the late 1970s after dictator Francisco Franco died. After Franco's forces won in 1939 with the help of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, Carrillo went into exile, from where he helped organise resistance to the dictatorship.« less